It is known that medical errors can directly or indirectly cause mortality and morbidity. It is also known that many medical errors are committed due, at least in part, to interruptions arising from communication requests (refer to, e.g., The Multitasking Clinician Decision-Making And Cognitive Demand During And After Team Handoffs In Emergency Care, Archana Laxmisan, Forogh Hakimzada, Osman R. Sayan, Robert A. Green, Jiajie Zhang, Vimla L. Patel, International Journal of Medical Informatics 76 (2007) pages 801-811; Improving Clinical Communication: A View From Psychology, Parker, J. and E. Coiera, J Am Med Inform Assoc, 2000. 7(5): p. 453-461; Interruptive Communication Patterns In The Intensive Care Unit Ward Round, Alvarez, G. and E. Coiera, International Journal of Medical Informatics, 74 (2005) pages 791-796; and Interrupted Care. The Effects Of Paging On Pediatric Resident Activities, Blum, N. J. and T. A. Lieu, AM J Dis Child, 1992. 146(7): p. 806-8). For example, an interruption arising from a communication request may prevent a clinician from completing an ongoing procedure or treatment, may disturb his or her train of thought during diagnosis, or may force him or her to rapidly hand off the activity to another clinician. These are all error-prone events. There are numerous other examples of scenarios where interruptions arising from a communication request can lead to a medical error being committed, which can negatively impact patient care.
Statistically, many interruptions tend to arise from communication requests that are of relatively low importance or urgency and could therefore be ignored or deferred. However, some interruptions arise from communication requests that pertain to mission-critical events in a healthcare facility (e.g., code blue team formation) and must therefore be responded to immediately and by appropriate personnel. Thus, there is a need in the industry for a method and system for managing communication requests in an institutional setting, with particular application to a healthcare facility where communication requests can come in a wide variety of formats and with varying degrees of criticality and urgency.
Furthermore, there is a need to monitor the workflow on either side of an interruption arising from a communication request in order to detect and prevent potential errors.